Saskatoon, SK – The Saskatchewan Huskies bounced back from a shutout loss on Friday to defeat the UBC Thunderbirds men's hockey team by a 5-2 score on Saturday afternoon tying the best-of-three Canada West quarter final at one game apiece. Five different Huskies scored for the home team while
Anthony Bardaro and
Nate Fleming scored for the Thunderbirds, forcing a decisive game 3 tomorrow evening to determine who advances to the Canada West semi-finals.
BOX SCORE
The fortunes were reversed Saturday afternoon as a night after Ryan Holfeld conceded five goals to the Thunderbirds; the Huskies put four past
Steven Stanford plus an empty netter. Cody Smuk, Kendall McFaull, Matthew Spafford, Chad Suer, and Craig McCallum scored for Saskatchewan while Holfeld stopped 25 of 27 shots on Saturday.
McFaull, a former Moose Jaw Warrior and Atlanta Thrashers draft pick, broke Stanford's shutout streak of 68:12 as the defenceman put the Huskies on the board midway through the first period, assisted by Andrew Bailey.
McCallum would waste no time increasing that advantage as the Huskies took a 2-0 lead two minutes later off a feed from John Lawrence and Jesse Ross. The Huskies would carry that lead into the first intermission holding a 15-7 advantage in shots.
Midway through the second period, Bardaro would cut the Huskies lead in half by potting his second in as many games off a feed from
Brad Hoban, beating Holfeld to put the Thunderbirds on the board. The visiting team's goal seemed to spark the Huskies, however, as the home team would add two unanswered to make it a 4-1 game. Spafford put one past Stanford initially restoring the Huskies two-goal advantage, potting his first of the playoffs off a pass from McFaull, who collected his second point of Saturday's matinee, and Derek Hulak, the Canada West scoring champion.
Scoring his first career playoff goal, Smuk, the fourth-year veteran, would make it a three-goal deficit for the visiting team while Bailey had an assist on the play giving him a multi-point affair.
UBC's Fleming gave the Thunderbirds the momentum entering the second intermission scoring his second of the playoffs as UBC converted on the power play with 40 seconds remaining in the period. Hoban and Bardaro would collects the assists giving each of them a two-point game as the score stood at 4-2 in favour of the Huskies with one period to go.
UBC poured it on throughout the third but were unable to solve Holfeld who kept the Thunderbirds scoreless before Suer added an empty netter to seal a 5-2 victory for Saskatchewan to keep their season alive.
Holfeld's counterpart, Stanford, finished the night with 27 saves on 31 shots taking the loss for the Thunderbirds. UBC finished 1-for-3 on the man advantage while successfully killing off both of its penalties, remaining perfect on the penalty kill during the playoffs thus far. The Thunderbirds power play is humming at 33.3% during the playoffs, going 3-for-9 through the first two games of the series
The winner of the series will advance to the Canada West semi-final, with either No. 9 ranked Saskatchewan facing the No. 4 ranked Calgary Dinos or UBC facing off against the top-seeded Alberta Golden Bears.
Game 3 will determine the series winner tomorrow at 5:00 pm (PST) at the Credit Union Centre in Saskatoon.
